Such a device is known from U.S. Pat. No. 1,953,560. During the reading of books, particularly in the case of handicapped people or when the person is lying down, there is always a need to hold the book or other publication open in the correct position without holding the book oneself. This applies in particular if a person is trying to read a book lying down, when it is then above or beside the reader's head.
In the abovementioned U.S. Pat. No. it is proposed that the deformable material should be a rubber spongy material. Such a readily deformable material will compress through the stiffness of the pages of the publications, and in this way all pages are held in place. All pages are in this case held by friction between the rubber-like material and the pages. Problems occur when a page has to be turned. At the place where the page is removed, the deformation will be only partially removed, while it is not possible to produce a further deformation at the place where a new page is placed, because a single page is not sufficiently stiff to do this.
It has been found that for limp, thin publications in particular insufficient friction is produced by the rubber material. Besides, the force is applied in particular to the part of the page which is close to the cover of the publications and against their middle part, so that there are always difficulties when turning over the page. This means that this fixing device is not able to support the book, i.e. keep it suspended in a position above the head. The object of the invention is to avoid this disadvantage.